Reuters announced the Top 25 Global Innovators Ranking of government research institutions on March 8, 2016. The Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) ranked #16 on the list and the Academica Sinica ranked #22.
The Alternative Energies & Atomic Energy Commission (CEA), the Fraunhofer Society and the Japan Science & Technology Agency had the highest Reuters Top 25 Global Innovators ranking of government research institutions.
European institutions dominated the list, accounting for nine out of 25 ranked institutions, more than any other continent. Asia was second with eight institutions. North America had seven institutions, with the United States having six. France and Japan each had four, and Germany had three.
To compile the ranking, the IP & Science division of Thomson Reuters identified more than 500 global organizations, including universities, nonprofit organizations, and government-funded institutions, which published the most articles in academic journals. They also identified the total number of patents filed by each organization and evaluated each candidate on factors including how many patents had been filed, how often those applications were granted, how many patents were filed to global patent offices in addition to local authorities and how often the patents were cited by other patents. Candidates were also evaluated in terms of the number of articles published by researchers in academic journals, how often those papers were cited by patents and how many articles featured a co-author from industry. They reduced the list to include government-run or funded organizations, ranking them based on their performance.
